5/20/2008

Climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulphur into the atmosphere to survive. A scientist has proposed this radical solution to climate change which may change the colour of the sky. He says it may be necessary, as the "last barrier to climate collapse...We need to be ready to start doing it in perhaps five years time if we fail to achieve what we're trying to achieve." The gas sulphur would be inserted into the earth's stratosphere to keep out the sun's rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming. The sulphur could be dispersed above the earth's surface by adding it to jet fuel. He conceded there were risks to global dimming via sulphur. "The consequences of doing that are unknown." Australia's best-known expert on global warming, he has updated his climate forecast for the world - and it's much worse than he thought just three years ago. He has called for a radical suite of emergency measures to be put in place. New science shows the world is much more susceptible to greenhouse gas emissions that had been thought eight years ago. Regardless of what happens to emissions in the future, there is already far too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Cutting emissions is not enough. Mankind now has to take greenhouse gases out of the air. "The current burden of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is in fact more than sufficient to cause catastrophic climate change. Everything's going in the wrong direction at the moment, timelines are getting shorter, the amount of pollution in the atmosphere is growing. It's extremely urgent."